I support amendments 158, 176 and 177, which have been tabled by the Joint Committee on Human Rights. I am not sure that they go far enough, but they are what we have before us.
On amendment 158, my anxiety relates to the wording in clause 1. It almost legislates for pre-crimes, which became fashionable a couple of years ago. Hon. Members might recall that, at the time of the royal wedding, Dr Chris Knight and a number of his friends wished to protest against expenditure on the royal wedding. As part of a theatre group, they were going to take papier-mâché representations of the royal family to Buckingham palace on the day of the royal wedding and ceremonially guillotine them. The police arrested Dr Knight and his friends, detaining them—this was eventually legally challenged—on the basis that this was not a crime, but a pre-crime that could, at some point in the future, be designated as a crime.
The Bill, without the relatively minor amendment from the Joint Committee on Human Rights, states:
“The first condition is that the court is satisfied, on the balance of probabilities, that the respondent has engaged or threatens to engage in conduct capable of causing a nuisance”.
That is not conduct causing a nuisance and not a crime that is taking place, but a judgment that there could be a crime in the future. That is a burden of judgment placed on a police officer or others that is almost impossible to determine and will leave us open to legal challenges until the cows come home. I support the amendment because it would at least define “reasonable judgment”, with criteria brought forward when the judgment is exercised. Otherwise, we will potentially be giving officers and others—in particular, the court—extensive powers, with little evidence on which to base the exercise of those powers.
The theme of our concerns in amendment 176 is to ensure that people have the right to express their views and the right to protest. Part 1, by designating certain forms of behaviour as unacceptable, can close down, as pre-crimes, certain activities. Those activities are exemplified by the experience of Dr Chris Knight, who was simply attempting to voice an alternative view. I am grateful to Mr Matthew Varnham for pointing out, in his evidence to the Joint Committee, that, as the Bill currently stands, any spontaneous act of protest could be designated as antisocial behaviour.
Curiously enough, I met Mr Varnham on a protest in Parliament square—people with disabilities were campaigning against work capability assessments. The protest had been applied for in advance and the police had given permission for it to take place. Spontaneous acts will take place at such protests. Groups will break off spontaneously and undertake other forms of protest, because they will have been convinced by the people speaking or by the debate that has taken place that further action needs to take place. As the Bill stands, that form of spontaneous protest would be outlawed and we would be dragging people through the courts simply because they went along to listen to a speech—for example, by the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes)—were excited by it, and decided that they wanted to do something spontaneous to ensure that his views were echoed in the wider community. At the moment, they would be arrested. God forbid that the right hon. Gentleman would ever incite anyone in that way—not on the basis of his speeches in this place, but perhaps elsewhere.
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If we close down free speech, we will be dragging people through the courts who simply want to exercise their right in a democratic society to say that they disagree. It is often the people who exercise this right to whom Parliament listens. It is as a result of such protest that legislative reform takes place. Most hon. Members have been involved in such campaigns, in particular the Minister, who is our sleeper within the Home Office on matters of this sort. I am anxious that we are giving a breadth of powers to courts and others to prevent freedom of speech. That is why I agree with amendment 176—a relatively mild-mannered amendment —which says that where there is an opportunity for peaceful assembly people should not be dragged before the courts just because they have taken the opportunity to protest spontaneously.
Amendment 177 is also tabled by the Joint Committee on Human Rights. I am extremely anxious about the additional penalty. I was involved in a case in south London where a family was threatened with eviction by,
I believe, the London borough of Wandsworth. One member of the family, a young man, was prosecuted for participating in the riots. The family had no role whatever in the riots. I am not sure what their attitude was towards the young man—it never came out in discussions —but they certainly never knew that he was engaged in that behaviour. However, they were all threatened with eviction. Eventually, legal action was threatened and the local authority withdrew. I am worried that when the Bill is passed we will be in a situation where parents and others, who have no control over individual members of their family, will suffer as a result of a crime that they never participated in and, often, did not condone.
The inclusion of the measure in the Bill might have been politically advantageous a couple of years ago, but time has moved on. It is draconian and will result in injustice. As has been said, if a crime is committed by a member of a household in the vicinity of that property, powers already exist to deal with that. Most hon. Members would seek to ensure that the landlord, whether the council or a housing association, implemented the tenancy agreement. Every tenancy agreement I have seen in recent times allows the exercise of powers to seek repossession if necessary when a family, or a visitor, has brought about antisocial behaviour that has affected neighbours and others living in the vicinity. This measure is therefore unnecessary and will have a disproportionate impact on the families of those who may well have been involved in other forms of illegal activity—the riots were given as an example by the Minister when this was debated previously.
The right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark said that he will not press any of the amendments to a Division, but I hope we will receive assurances that these issues will be addressed.